Dear Nigel,
You wrote, “The article to which our attention was drawn is a slight piece of opinion journalism, published in a business magazine. It is a '5-minute read', as the magazine editors themselves tag it, for busy business people. It is not an academic article and it does not connect with issues of PhD studies and related research in design. It should be regarded as of no significance to this discussion list. It touches in a personalised, simplistic way on major issues of the complex relationships between society, technology and design, but those are issues that have extensive, long-standing academic, political and other histories and backgrounds that deserve to be treated more seriously than they are, and can possibly be, on this list. The article does not offer new insights. The discussion around it here is another case of the Emperor's New Clothes.”
Hmmmmmmm …. I’m of four minds on your post to the list.
Mind 1) What’s wrong with Don Norman’s article in Fast Company? Fast Company invited Don to write an opinion piece. He did. Fast Company has a readership (rate base) of 700,000. The Fast Company web site averages 10,600,000 unique visitors per month and 17,100,000 page views. An opinion piece in Fast Company has the potential for great impact.
How much impact will it have? Not much. But ideas must circulate if they are eventually to take hold.
A half century ago tomorrow, Andrei Sakharov published an opinion piece in the New York Times titled “Thoughts on Progress, Peaceful Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom.” While it circulated in samizdat in the Soviet Union, the wide global readership in the New York Times launched a discussion that slowly led to global change. In 2018, many of the changes we once thought had taken hold have lost their grip in the world of Trump and Putin, and a world of lesser lights such as Boris Johnson. Even so, Sharansky's opinion piece helped many people to think of a different, and good things came from it. I read The Guardian, The New York Times, and several newsmagazines and journals of opinion. I wish more of them would invite Don to raise these kinds of issues.
Only a small number of designers and design researchers have enough visibility and public face to attract that kind of attention. I’d like to see more such pieces by the handful of designers who might get access to the pages of major media.
Mind 2) Francois Nsenga posted this to the list to raise the issues and invite comments. We do more than discuss doctoral education on this list. We also discuss research issues relevant to design. One reason for that is the fact that this list has around 3,000 subscribers involved in different aspects of design research. There’s nothing quite like it, and people often raise issues and questions that concern them. If the opinion piece to which Francois directed our attention was a short read, nothing would have prevented thoughtful and extended commentary here. And that leads me to a third point. On this third point, we are of the same mind.
Mind 3) Some of the responses on the list were trivial. This is not because the opinions are wrong, but because few people who expressed an opinion took the time to explain their views. Keith Russell dismissed Don’s essay and Francois’s concern as simple gripes, posting a century-old poem by Robert Frost as a counterpoint. Knowing Keith’s interest in philosophy, I was tempted to reply with a quip from one of the pre-Socratics. I decided against it, and simply explained why Frost’s musings on an axe handle were irrelevant.
Wolfgang Jonas posted a grumpy yet reasonable complaint to say that human-centered design is meaningless in a world governed by our current economic system. Since I agree, in part, I’d have been eager to read a careful and extended discussion. Unfortunately, Jonas did not explain himself. Neither did Ali Ilhan, whose research I follow closely. While Ali is an industrial designer, he took a PhD in sociology, and his analytical skills make what he writes worth reading. I hope that Jonas and Ali will return to explain their views at length.
David Sless and Klaus Krippendorff both posted short and nicely reasoned comments, tightly focused on a few key issues. While they might have said more, it’s my view that they explained themselves at great enough length to substantiate their views.
Mind 4) Is it impossible to address topics “on major issues of the complex relationships between society, technology and design” on the PhD-Design list? I don’t know. You assert that “those are issues that have extensive, long-standing academic, political and other histories and backgrounds that deserve to be treated more seriously than they are, and can possibly be, on this list.”
I’d like to know why we can’t manage that. Given the ups and downs of any discussion list, I sometimes tend to agree with you. Then I’ll read a beautiful, well substantiated post in which I learn something new and useful. When that happens, I change my mind. My joy is often short-lived, since someone often follows up with a trivial comment or an incorrect fact. That is the problem of any list that permits everyone in the field to subscribe freely, giving each subscriber the opportunity to state their mind on any topic that may interest them.
Francois launched this thread with a reasonable question. He gave us the link to an opinion piece by Don. Don raised more issues in his short 5-minute read than anyone can possibly address. The point was to stimulate the readers of Fast Company to think. Francois asked for comments here. His idea was to stimulate the readers of PhD-Design to think and to offer substantive commentary.
That struck me as a good opportunity to extend the short Fast Company discussion into something more serious. I wouldn’t expect comments that resemble fully argued journal articles, but it should be possible to see some nicely argued, well substantiated comments that would allow more of us to think deeply on the important issues in Don’s opinion piece.
Yours,
Ken
Ken Friedman, Ph.D., D.Sc. (hc), FDRS | Editor-in-Chief | 设计 She Ji. The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation | Published by Tongji University in Cooperation with Elsevier | URL: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/she-ji-the-journal-of-design-economics-and-innovation/
Chair Professor of Design Innovation Studies | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China ||| Email [log in to unmask] | Academia http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman | D&I http://tjdi.tongji.edu.cn
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